For many years scientists have wondered what caused the fall of tektites
around the world. But decades of debate have left crucial questions
unanswered. Now it is time to consider the electrical possibilities.

They are found
on every continent and come in a variety of forms, but their
distribution by type is not random.
The regional association
of different tektite types is evident in many of the names given to
them. “Bediasites” from Texas received their name from the Bedias
Indians. The location of Australites is self evident, as also
javanites and philippinites. Moldavite, called the most beautiful
tektite (often a translucent light green), comes from the Moldau
River Valley in Bohemia and Monrovia.

Some tektites
appear as small glassy clumps. Others are more defined as buttons,
teardrops, or quasi-spherical shapes, and dumbbells, rods, and
disks are also known. In certain ways, tektites are like “concretions”
we’ve discussed in
recent Pictures
of the Day. But often they are not constituted from the soil
in which they are found. The evidence suggests they were dropped
in place.

No one can say with certainty how tektites are formed, and for this reason
classification itself is often ambiguous. For example, most
specialists do not agree whether “Libyan Desert glass”, though
enigmatic, should be classified as a “tektite”.

Charles Darwin popularized the idea that tektites are volcanic, but
this idea was later discredited. Some scientists have also suggested
that large comets may have sprayed the earth with these odd stones.

As
the space age arrived, attention shifted to the moon.
In the 1960s, Dean
Chapman and Howard Larson prepared a number of scientific papers on
tektites, suggesting a lunar source. In 1963 the Journal of
Geophysical Research published their paper "On the Lunar Origin of
Tektites”.

Chapman believed that, as large meteors struck the lunar surface,
some of the material excavated by the impact escaped to space. He
observed that some tektites, most notably those from Australia, show
signs of “aerodynamic ablation”, a sculpting by passage through the
Earth’s atmosphere at extremely high speeds, he believed.

The picture
above (top) shows three views of a specimen created experimentally
by Chapman in Ames Research Center’s arc-jet facility, which is used
to test various aerodynamic designs in intense winds generated by
plasma discharge. The bottom set shows a well-preserved natural
specimen exhibiting a surprising similarity to the experimental
result. Indeed, as
the U.S. space program began to confront issues of heating during
reentry, this peculiar characteristic of some tektites inspired
engineers to rethink the design of heat shields for spacecraft.

Nevertheless,
the notion that tektites traveled across space to arrive at Earth
faces one seemingly insurmountable problem—the selective location of
particular tektite types. Strewn fields of tektites, occurring
within defined areas, are suggestive of
regional, not global,
events.

The majority
of specialists today believe that tektites, though originating on
Earth, were blasted out of terrestrial soil by meteoric impact.
They identify the
chemical composition of various tektites with that of Earth’s
crustal rocks. Reinforcing this interpretation was the discovery
that some tektites harbored spherules of nickel-iron, the
constituent material of many meteorites.

Additionally, the many samples of lunar soil returned by the Apollo
missions did not reveal the building blocks for tektites, whereas a
primary base in terrestrial chemistry is increasingly evident. For
example, the isotopic composition of argon
inclusions in
sealed bubbles suggests a terrestrial origin,
according to many specialists.

Prof. S.R.
Taylor, in his book "Solar System Evolution", writes: "The source of
tektites has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt as being due
to melted terrestrial (usually sedimentary) rock splashed during
meteorite impact. The whole argument over a lunar vs. terrestrial
origin of tektites was an interesting example of the inability of
the protagonists for a lunar origin to recognize the decisive
geochemical evidence in favor of a terrestrial origin."

Yet here too
the filters of prior beliefs give rise to another “inability … to
recognize … evidence.” Inherent in Taylor’s reasoning is the
assumption that a “terrestrial origin” can only mean “caused by
meteoric impact”. But field and laboratory evidence, as well as
theoretical considerations, contradict this assumption. As noted
years ago by astrophysicist Thomas Gold, impacts cause little
melting. Much of the impact energy is dissipated in “shock
displacement”, and what heat is generated is largely radiated away
before conduction can transmit it into the debris.

In the Electric Universe
model, this observation is crucial. An electric arc will not only
rip up the rock it strikes but also envelop the debris in a “plasma
oven” effect that evenly melts the exposed surfaces. Small pieces of
debris may be completely melted. At the same time the arc will
accelerate the debris, scattering it over a wide area. An
interplanetary arc with the power of a “thunderbolt of the gods”
could even hurl some of the debris into space. Furthermore, electric
discharge is the one process known to produce small
spherules. Thus the NASA experiment in an arc-jet facility shows how
an arc discharge can replicate tektite formation perfectly.

To these
considerations Wallace Thornhill adds another. He contends that a
large incoming body will be disrupted electrically before striking
the ground (as in the notorious Tunguska explosion). The sudden
internal electrical stresses following a catastrophic lightning bolt
between the Earth and the bolide will shatter it. So when geologists
identify a particular crater as the apparent source of a tektite
field, the electrical interpretation does not look to an “impact” to
excavate soil and rock but to the effects of an explosive electrical
discharge.

In
this view, the well-documented surface etching and pitting of
tektites is a predictable consequence of their electrical creation,
whereas geologists posit unknown chemical processes after burial in
the soil.

Debris
electrically accelerated into the sky and falling back over a broad
region might account for native traditions from Europe to China and
Australia. These traditions say that tektites fell from the sky or
were cast down by native gods of the thunderbolt. Such traditions
remind us of the mythic “thunderstones” hurled by lightning-bearing
gods in tribal accounts the world over. (See Thunderbolts of
the God, page 86).

It is not unreasonable to wonder if such traditions influenced the first
scientific theories of tektite origins, which linked tektites to
lightning strikes.

The relationship of tektite formation to the Tunguska event is also
worth exploring. Though no crater was produced by the event, Russian
scientist Andrei Yu. Ol'khovatov notes that “some tektite-like
objects were found at the epicenter of the 1908 Tunguska explosion.
A Russian researcher G. Sal'nikova writes that below fallen trees
and in rock cracks black glassy layered particles were discovered
among others. Their dimensions were about 1 cm.” The primary
constituent was silica.

Ol'khovatov also reports that local Evenks spoke of “burned (molten)
soil and sand' in the epicenter. Such reports as these cause
Ol'khovatov to question standard assumptions. “Who
knows, maybe the initial idea of 'lightning strikes' was closer to
the truth than the modern one?”